


children running through

by okayantigone



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Assassins & Hitmen, Child Abuse, Crying, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Gen, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Valentine's Day, Vomiting, autistic illumi RISE, bungee gum - Freeform, illumi eats rocks, ten mafia dons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 17:17:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17791517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okayantigone/pseuds/okayantigone
Summary: yet another selfish younger brother of illumi's has decided to leave home. kalluto is ever-polite in informing him that he will not be returning with him. that he is joining the ryodan. that illumi has to stand in front of their mother, again, and tell her he's failed to bring another one of her children back, knowing full well, he's going to get more than slapped this time.it isn't fair, but no one wants to hear it from him.





	children running through

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crownsandbirds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownsandbirds/gifts).



> im sad abt illumi, now y'all get to be sad about him too

illumi says “you must not make kill’s mistake. you are not allowed to have friends. you were not made for it.” pensieve, head knocked to the side in a graceless tilt with the ache of his pins, eyes slanting somewhere to the side, he adds, as an afterthought “none of us were.”

 

“what’s hisoka then?” kalluto had asked, taking a page out of killua’s book, and just puring gasoline all over the conversation, and tossing a Molotov in it, just in case the fire wasn’t big enough. unlike kill, his voice isn’t mocking or derisive, or any other of a number of emotions that illumi, personally, had had beaten out of him, and made sure to beat out of kalluto. it was just curiosity, big-eyed, childish still, the way kalluto was childish, with his soft cheeks and tiny hands, perfect for lockpicking and getting out of handcuffs without breaking bones. for now.

 

he’d slanted a glare at his youngest brother, meaningfully communicating with his eyes, and murderous intent in his aura that this was not a conversation to be had, now or ever, and kalluto had shrugged in a delicate graceful motion he must have picked up from mother, and mimicked zipping his mouth shut with his hand. there was another difference between him and kill. he just knew when to drop things.

 

they cleared their way through the mansion in silence, after that. illumi could have done the job on his own, but it was important for kalluto to start flexing his fledgling wings, lest he feel too stuffed up in the manor, and decide to do something… _drastic and unseemly._ that had been mother’s reasoning anyhow.

 

that’s what had been wrong with kill – maybe if she’d sent him out more – the histrionics, as usual, continued on for hours, after the floodgates of the tangent were opened. illumi privately felt something that his applied psychology tutor would have identified as “resentment”, at his father and grandfather for raising the proverbial levies of the storm, and then leaving him to deal with it.

 

illumi would never physically attack mother. it was unthinkable. but he offered her a cup of tea, and dosed it generously with some sleeping dust, before carrying her off to bed. it just couldn’t possibly be good for her heart to get upset like that all the time, which was another reason kill’s selfishness could not be allowed to stand any longer.

 

kalluto executed a perfect blow to the target’s neck. blood spilled on the floor. he studied it clinically, the red hues reflecting in his eyes, making them near- amaranthine in the glow of the moon through the window. he took a few steps back, until his back leaned into illumi’s thigh. sloppy, not being fully aware that illumi had moved. he reached to smack him for it, but kalluto was faster, turning round to face him, craning his neck to look up. pale arms extended gracefully up to him. the skin was marred with rope burn along the wrist, and burns on the inside of the arms. milluki had started him on torture training, it would seem. he made a motion with his fingers.

 

“lift me up. the blood’ll get on my tabi.” he demanded, his still unbroken voice high and arrogant. seeing no reason not to, illumi obliged.

 

“you’re too vain,” he said. “it will play you a disservice.”

 

kalluto laid his hand into the crook of his brother’s neck and shoulder. “you’ve got hair down to your butt.”

 

it was illumi’s turn to drop it. he carried kalluto out of the manor, and they walked towards the front gate in companiable silence. the town car was parked sloppily, illumi’s needle doll staring mindlessly into the forest’s shadows.

 

“you can let me down now,” kalluto said. illumi did. sometimes kalluto liked to walk hand in hand with him. it was impractical, it left them both with one less limb to use in self-defence, should one of them be attacked. but kalluto hadn’t grown out of the habit, even when illumi kept breaking his fingers for trying it after he turned six.

 

he didn’t reach for illumi’s hand this time, and illumi became quickly aware that his delicate steps weren’t following behind.

 

“this is as far as i go,” kalluto said quietly. he was standing just between the gate. illumi’s thin eyebrows shot up into his forehead.

 

“pardon me?”

 

kalluto didn’t look him in the face, opting instead, to look at the white-socked tips of his own feet. guilt read in the tense line of his small shoulders. illumi felt the unfamiliar pinpricks of rage somewhere along the inner lining of his stomach. he was going to flay the skin off this bird-boned child for the insolence.

 

“my transport comes here later,” kalluto’s voice was low, even. when he looked up, there was something sharp and resolute in the still-soft, baby-fat plumped lines of his doll-like face. illumi contemplated cutting his legs off. they could afford to have good prosthetics made, it wouldn’t impede him much on jobs.

 

he pulls a needle into his fingers. kalluto raises his fan cautiously.

 

“who’s your transport?” he asks, finally, when he quiets the blood pounding through his temples, and orders the meagre breakfast he consumed to stay into his stomach.

 

kalluto’s mouth twitches. guilt again. “the ryodan.”

 

illumi hisses in pain. in drawing his fist closed, he’d pierced his own palm with the needle. he pulls it out of his hand and tosses it to the ground. this whole thing is childish. he’s being childish. petulant. it isn’t _fair._

“i’m replacing hisoka.” kalluto adds as an unnecessary explanation. illumi had told him a million times – there’s no need to constantly _elaborate_ on things.

 

“you’re leaving,” illumi clarifies, and swallows past … something in his throat. “the family?”

 

kalluto regards him again, with those big empty eyes. “maybe,” he says. it’s not a yes. but it isn’t a no either.

 

“does mother know?” illumi asks tersely. his lunch tries to claw its way up his throat again. the way it’s going, it’s almost like he are something alive, rather than hisoka’s pathetic excuse for egg fried rice. or maybe the eggs hatched in his throat. it’s exactly the kind of shit hisoka would pull. hisoka isn’t his friend.

 

kalluto looks at him like he’s being especially stupid. “it’s better to ask forgiveness, than permission,” he recites dully. illumi can deduce by his tone, that he plans on asking for neither. “i told grandfather,” he offers, like it’s any consolation. zeno thrived on any chaos that would upset his hysterical foreign daughter-in-law.

 

“right,” illumi echoes, hollow. he can’t fight kalluto and hold back enough not to kill or cripple him. he can’t let him leave without fighting. why must those _selfish_ arrogant children insist on being so _cruel and unfair?_ all he tries to do – all he’s ever tried to do – is keep the family – this family, their family, the only one they have – from falling apart.

 

it translates into being silent, always, into creeping through the house, shadow-like, into drenching his hands with blood, his hair with blood, it means swallowing down the acid apple-pies and being _grateful_ and asking for _seconds_ after every slap. it means bowing, forehead to the floorboards and renouncing his status as heir when a new, more talented child toddles through the living room, chubby arms scorched from the taser, fat fingers twisting in his hair, tugging, “pretty aniki,” it means doing what he’s _told,_ and following the _rules._

no one ever told him the rules were optional. it isn’t _fair._ what is hisoka to him? not his friend, that magician, who’d walked the tightrope into his life smiling, and coaxed smiles out of him as he did doves out of empty handkerchiefs.

 

the black car skids to a halt at the gate. the blackout window rolls down. feitan and phinks sit in a silence, that is not companiable, but not tense either. are they friends to each other? will they be friends to kalluto?

 

_the troupe mourned uvo,_ hisoka had said thoughtfully. bare of makeup, his face was angular and handsome, his lips looked fuller, when the white foundation didn’t blend them into his skin, instead they were kiss-swollen.

 

would the troupe mourn kalluto if he killed this _lying, treacherous little brother_ right where he stood, before he’d even joined them?

 

kalluto steps into the car gracefully, the way he’s learned from mother. he looks straight ahead, and doesn’t turn to illumi. the black window rolls up.

 

will he remember to take his daily dose of aconite? it goes down smoother in chamomile tea, but the servants make the tea, so will kalluto know?

 

it’s not his concern anymore. he rubs his palms together, to get rid of the goosebumps, if kalluto can wash his hands of him so easily – of their famly – illumi can do the same to him too. he raises a hand, and blows the needle-man’s head off in one clean swoop of nen.

 

he picks up his phone. he must call mother. she will be so angry with him for not stopping kalluto, he will surely be punished for it. there’s an unread message. hisoka is not his friend.

 

_happy valentine’s day, sweetheart_ _⭐^_^_ _💧_

 

he stares at the letters, until they stop making sense, the glowing screen looking blurry, confusing. a few fat drops of water fall on the glowing plexiglass. how odd, that it’s raining and he hasn’t noticed. he lifts a hand up. the ground beneath his feet is still dusty and dry.

 

  1. that’ll be it, then. the weird feeling has manifested itself in crying. mother cries frequently and lot, always loudly, complete with wailing, and smashing her hands into the plates, and the knick-knacks that line the shelves, so father has to grab her by the wrists and hold her to his chest until the storm passes.



 

when he’d cried past a certain age, he’d mostly gotten backhands for his efforts. milluki had been a quiet baby, mostly staring with big impassive eyes at the world. alluka he hadn’t really seen a lot of.  mother doted on her, because she was a girl, and then she wasn’t a person anymore so it didn’t matter if she cried or not. kalluto had had his wetnurses and nannies, so illumi had no way of knowing. kill had cried though. a lot. he’d been a child prone to the same hysterics as mother. he hadn’t gotten slapped for it nearly as often though. he was _special._

 

illumi had never wanted to see him get smacked either. until he left.

 

he’s crying now, and there’s no one to smack him, or to hold his wrists. almost as a test, he slams the back of his hand into the wall. the impact reverbates, hollow, and rattles his bone, to his elbow. his knuckles don’t split though he’s sure to bruise. he does it again. something satisfying settles in the place in his chest that these tears have emptied out. a heaviness at the bottom of his stomach that anchors him.

 

when he can’t feel his left hand anymore, he chances a look at his phone again. he ought to call mother now.

 

hisoka who is not his friend picks up on the second ring. he always sounds like he’s smiling.

“good evening, beloved,” he says, and his voice glides into all those secret hurt places illumi has patched up with needles over the years. “did you kill anyone interesting today?”

 

he usually asks that, every time they talk, wants to know, genuinely. he is not illumi’s friend. his mouth always tastes like the sweet thing he layers on his lips before he covers them with the white foundation to keep them from becoming dry and chapped.

 

it hadn’t been a very interesting job. illumi tries to shape the word “no”, but his mouth doesn’t want to. the sound he manages doesn’t sound like him at all, a garbled pathetic half-sob. he hadn’t made sounds like this even when grandfather flayed the skin off his back during torture training. the zoldycks had family medics on call, to make sure that he wouldn’t scar, and by the time puberty hit him, everything had faded from his skin. hisoka covered the freckles on his shoulders with texture surprise, and the ones that dotted the high slopes of his cheeks with his make up.

 

“are you okay, my love?” hisoka asks. his voice isn’t worried. yet. illumi can’t breathe. the shitty fried rice finally makes his way up his throat, and nearly knocks his teeth on its way out. that’s got to be it. hisoka’s terrible cooking had somehow gotten past all his poison training, and upset his stomach. affected him in impossible ways. a magic trick, indeed.

 

hisoka stays on the line, silent, and listens to the sound of him vomiting, and then regaining his breathing. none of it had gotten in his hair, again, as if by magic.

 

finally, triumphantly, he says the word “no”, like he’d meant to, but it’s the answer to the wrong question. or maybe it’s the right answer.

 

“where are you?” hisoka asks. “are you hurt?”

 

now the concern is there, right along the anger that illumi knows well. _stupid, careless boy. you know better_. illumi slumps against the wall and sits in the dirt. with his free hand, the one he bruised to hell and back, he grabs a fistful of the brown ground and crumbles it between his fingers. it’s fine – nutritious. there must be vines in the region. there’s a fun looking rock next to his ankle.

 

he lets his eyes flutter shut, and pictures the rock.

 

“not yet,” he says.

 

“not yet… what?” hisoka asks. he always asks. he loves to know things. it’s a good thing to want to know things. hisoka is not his friend, but illumi knows hisoka never went to school, because hisoka told him that. it’s why he likes to know things. illumi knows a lot of things hisoka doesn’t know. like this. he knows this right now. he knows something mother doesn’t know, and when she finds out, she will be angry.

 

“i’m not hurt yet,” illumi says, patiently. between the two of them, hisoka is smarter. illumi never likes to make him feel stupid, when he explains things, but he never knows when too much explaining is too much explaining, the way he always told kalluto off.

 

when he opens his eyes, the fun looking rock is still there.

 

he stretches and reaches for it. it’s dark purple, speckled with brown. it’s round, like an egg. he likes things with round shapes, which is why his needles have round tips.

 

“you’re not hurt,” hisoka says, to confirm. “but you will be?”

 

he _gets it._ he gets things so quickly. “ _mhm.”_

“why?” hisoka asks.

 

illumi imagines him, in his luxurious apartment in heaven’s arena. maybe he’s already taken his makeup off, and is lounging in bed with the tv remote in hand, or maybe he’s sitting on the balcony, looking down at the city.

 

he pops the rock in his mouth. it’s not smooth. he runs his tongue over it. it’s been in the dirt. there’s definitely vineyards around here.

 

“kalluto ran away,” he enunciates carefully around the rock. his tutors used to put a cork in his mouth, to teach him elocution. his mother still carries the meteor city slums in the way she rounds her vowels, and father didn’t want him picking it up from her.

 

he can picture hisoka startling, golden eyes narrowing.

 

“ _did kalluto hurt you?”_ hisoka sounds incredulous. it’s laughable, to think of it. kalluto couldn’t take illumi down in a practice spar, let alone if they fought for real. if illumi wanted to hurt him, that is. but illumi hadn’t wanted to hurt him. and so they hadn’t even fought. so he says, again, “no.”

 

he runs his tongue over the rock again. grapply.

 

“who’s going to hurt you, illumi, my love?” hisoka asks, and his voice is so unbearably tender, it makes illumi want to cry again. he wants to tell hisoka to stop. when he sounds like this – like he’s angry – not _at_ him but _for_ him… it picks apart at everything that illumi stapled together with his needles, and never looked back at. “are you afraid of your mother, my dove?”

 

_oh,_ illumi thinks, _hisoka is so_ smart.

 

but he can’t make a sound past another pathetic exhale, that sounds too much like a sob.

 

he’s tired. he’s so, so tired. kalluto and killua get to go around, leaving messes behind, and when he can’t clean them up, no matter how hard he tries, it’s him that gets punished, and it’s him mother hates for his failure to keep her beloved children home.

 

he pulls the spit-shined rock out of his mouth carefully. “i think i’m going to sleep for a bit,” he says. his body feels too heavy to move. kalluto isn’t coming home.   
  
“you – “ hisoka cuts himself off, midway, a disappearing act of a sentence. “alright, beloved. get some rest, okay?”

 

he clicks on the red button on his phone, and digs in the dirt. it’s dark and warm under the ground, and he’s so heavy, he sinks right to the bottom of the shallow grave. he dreams of a black and white chequered blanket. mother had worn a wide-brimmed hat with yellow feathers, and there were cupcakes and his first ever glass of sweet bubbly wine. it must have been his birthday. he must have been very little.

 

mother asked if he wanted to play a game. he’d clapped his hands, so happy and excited, his laugh bubbling like the wine. father echoed him, condescending, but not unkind. “you spoil him, kikyo.”

 

“does hide and seek sound good?” she’d asked, bright. milluki hadn’t been born yet, but mother’s figure was nicely rounded and plump, her cheeks constantly flushed. grandfather had rolled his eyes. illumi had just been happy to have her look at him. or at least have her visor turned in his general direction.

 

he’d clapped his childishly chubby hands. “sure!”

 

“you hide first,” she’d said, magnanimously, how generous. if she hid from him, he may have to spend the whle afternoon looking, that’s how good she was.

 

she’d put her pretty hands over her visor. he’d ran into the forest. like everything else, it was a test. when he made his way back to the clearing after dark, there was no picnic blanket. only trampled grass, and a flashlight. he’d spent a week in the forest, evading traps, and running from exotic beasts that must have been the “very special birthday present” they’d spent procuring for him. the betrayal still stung, even in the dream.

 

in the dream, when he walked into the clearing after dark, his mother was still there. his father had fallen asleep turned on his side, and she was leaning on his back, reading.

 

“i couldn’t find you,” dream-mother says. “you hid so well. _clever boy.”_

he wakes up with a gasp, and gets a mouthful of dirt for it. he digs his way out, and dusts off. he’s still heavy, and his head aches in a tender way, like he’s been drinking. he pulls a pin out, twirls it between his fingers as he studies the morning sun, and then jams it in the base of his skull. the headache’s gone, and then he can focus on the other presence.

 

hisoka’s dressed in handsome white, a pink heart and a pink diamond complimenting the red in his hair. he’s sitting with his back to the fence, the same way illumi had been sitting just hours prior.

 

“you’ll get stains on your – “illumi says. hisoka waves him off. he is smiling, but he isn’t happy. his eyes are cool, and illumi takes a step back. this is the look that says _i am angry with you, but you don’t know it yet._

“your brother is a selfish little rat,” hisoka says, still smiling. he’s not angry _at_ him, but _for_ him.

 

he stands up. his trousers are pristinely white, which must be texture surprise in action. he takes a step closer, and this time, illumi lets him.

 

“i vomited last night,” he warns, when hisoka leans in for the kiss. hisoka frowns, which looks wrong on his face, and angles his face to brush his lips against illumi’s dusty cheek instead.

 

“okay.” he says simply, because everything with him is simple. out of some invisible pocket, he procures a packet of –

 

“is that _bungee gum?”_ illumi asks, despite himself, his wide eyes taking in the pink little package. hisoka slices the paper open with his manicured nail, and pushes out two sticks of gum.   
  
“open up,” he sing-songs. illumi opens his mouth to accept the gum. it’s sweet, and it isn’t even poisoned.

 

“tastes nice, right?” hisoka prompts, expectation in the lines along his eyes. illumi nods. he’s not sure he could speak. it tastes better than the fun rock. he looks around for it. it’s where he dropped it, next to his phone.

 

“had a bit of fun, tracking your phone down,” hisoka says, warmly, not unkindly, not accusatory. “figured i’d wait for you to get some rest.”

 

illumi nods numbly. he’s chewing mechanically. the gum tastes fruity and artificial and overly sweet.

 

_sometimes when i was a child it was all i’d get to eat for days,_ hisoka had said.

 

_i like to put rocks in my mouth,_ illumi had blurted out.

 

“i – “ illumi pauses, and rolls his tongue over his teeth, and the sticky pink gum, trying to figure out how to make the words do what he wants them to. he pictures them as an extension of his nen, and imbues them with his intent. “i am grateful,” he says at last. “that you came here. and that you brought me gum.”

 

hisoka beams at him, his eyes warm like the early morning sun. “i love you,” he says simply, easily, like it explains everything in the world. that’s why he’s smarter than illumi. he _gets_ it. illumi doesn’t. doesn’t even know what _it_ means. hisoka picks up his phone, and the fun rock, and hands them to him.

 

“i’ll drive you to the airport,” he says. “you can put this in your mouth when the gum runs out of flavour.”

 

hisoka isn’t his friend, because illumi isn’t allowed friends, and no one was willing to make exceptions for him.

 

he tucks his phone in his pocket, and squeezes the rock in his bruised hand.

 

but god, wouldn’t it be _nice_ if he was?

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by @latinoleorio's "illumi is dumb" and "illumi eats rocks" headcanons on twitter & as always a gift to my firstborn, jean


End file.
